Something you may not know about me is that I enjoy home design…putting colors and furniture and accessories together in a room. While I’m a novice, I must be a little bit good at it because my mom and sister come to me a good bit for advice for their homes.
I have blue as a primary color throughout my downstairs, except the dining room. I have always loved the purple/green combination so that’s what I used there, along with some black. After a little too much HGTV recently, and my OCD tendencies, I decided my home design (at least downstairs) wasn’t cohesive enough with the other rooms, so now we have a new color scheme in our dining room.
The first thought I had was that I absolutely did not want to paint. I also did not want to change the light fixture. It’s fine and that’s not what I wanted to spend my money on. We just put down new floors in the last two years, so no need for money on that.
What I did change in my home design were the curtains, the lamps, table decor, a couple wall decor items, and added some fun knobs to a cabinet we have in there. So let’s see the change!
*Fun Fact: I have painted our dining room at least four times in 16 years…maybe five…SO I really did NOT want to paint*
I love these curtains, so all I did was change from black to navy blue. I have at least a touch of black in every other room in my house, so there is no doubt they’ll get used somewhere in my home design. With a price tag of only $22 from Amazon, I feel like I won the lottery.
I forgot to get a good before picture of the lamps, but I’m including one I had to zoom in on for you to see, so pardon the blurry. I picked up a can of spray paint at Lowe’s for $7. I could only find satin and I wanted a glossy finish, so I also purchased some lacquer. I did not include that in my total, because it’s a personal preference, but it was only $8.
It took me a total of maybe an hour to do this and most of that was dry time. Less than 5 minutes for coat one. Less than 5 minutes for coat two. 5 minutes in between coats. It needed one hour to dry before adding lacquer. I repeated the same process, let it dry and done!
The flowers were easy. I just went to Hobby Lobby (on a 40% off flowers week!) and picked up some flowers to replace the purple and green. I did add a touch of black to bring it all together and spent a grand total of $15 on these.
The table runner on the other hand, took a little more patience. I ordered three different runners and tried one I had before finding one that makes me happy. For the record, my idea and vendors’ idea of navy blue can vary quite a bit. Several of the runners I ordered were royal blue and not navy. Amazon is my go to for projects like this because I can order several different items to try then return what I don’t use for free. Makes my like so much easier when I don’t have run from store to store. The runner I landed on was just $13! *FUN FACT: I already own this runner in the light blue that I use in my living room*
Previously on the wall, I had framed prints of old purple and green doors that I purchase from Etsy, so when it was time to change and I couldn’t find different shades of blue doors, I started thinking about pictures I already have. We had professional family photos taken last year (shout out to Raycroft Art for a job well done!) with a blue and white “theme. $10 spent at the Walgreens Photo Lab for enlargements and bam, wall decor.
Several years ago, I got an old window, painted it and put some of our favorite, hand written recipes from the women in mine and my husband’s family and displayed them. I put a green and purple fabric background to add some color. You can see what it used to look like in this blog I did. Now, it has a new background. I splurged on the dish towels because the colors are so perfect. They sell on Amazon for $18!
I love to throw fun pops of color into unexpected places with my home design, so I decided to swap out the plain jane black knobs on a cabinet and change up a few picture frames, too. I ended up compromising style for the right color on the knobs, but ultimately, I think the $15 I spent on these knobs from Amazon was the right decision.
